@Yorumi That compliance process is silly though. If everybody just followed spec, it'd be a non-issue. Same with power bricks. Nyko should never need to get verified by Nintendo, and herein lies Nintendo's fault in the problem. But I also doubt that the Nyko dock is up to any sort of spec, period, regardless of the Switch itself.
@Yorumi I'd 100% agree with you that the Switch should have a better error recovery in place here. This is pretty inexcusable, and I'm not trying to make excuses for Nintendo. My original point, perhaps lost in the mountain of text I wrote, was to say that the fault doesn't entirely lie with Nintendo when hardware manufacturers are generally all awful at implementing USB-C spec properly. (Nintendo should take some of the blame, but I don't want to act like the third parties are all innocent here.)
@Blathers This is my bad; I hadn't had time to read through everything yet. I love Nathan K's research and have been following it since early 2016 when he started experimenting with Pixels and MacBooks. I suspect he's correct about PD issues, although I'm not sure that's related to the dock. I've been using my MacBook Pro charger and a power bank for a year while travelling through, and haven't had issues with the Switch. It sounds like a lot of it is over-drawing power, and I think that can be fixed with software.
@electrolite77 thanks for reading! I'm at work right now and have given all the different Google Plus stuff a read and the original Reddit threads. Nathan K, on Google +, is a super smart guy and I suspect he's right about chargers and power delivery (although my Switch seems fine after using my MacBook Pro charger for the past year).
I think the dock thing legitimately comes down to a combination of power and handshake issues, though, which means it's a combination of all these things and likely some internal politics we'll never be privy too.
Nintendo absolutely deserves condemnation for not using a "standard" USB-C protocol, but for what it's worth, there are maybe two companies in the world up to those standards. One of them is Apple. Otherwise, folks like Nathan K are having a hard time finding USB-C peripherals that behave well.
@Mortenb USB-C isn't a brand. It's a specification. Anybody can use it, just like HDMI, USB-C, or your average wall plug. And just like a wall plug, if manufacturers are careless, their product might set something on fire. (Speaking about the third-party dock manufacturers here, who are likely more to blame than Nintendo.)
I've created an account here just to post about this, mostly to clarify a couple things:
1. You can continue to use your USB-C power bricks without issue, unless the voltage doesn't match up. USB-C Power Delivery (PD) is a different spec from what Nintendo uses with the docks.
2. Nintendo isn't likely trying to be nefarious here. USB-C is a pretty complex technology. When you plug in a USB-C dongle into a device, the device has to determine what said dongle is. It's basically doing a "handshake" with the device to find out if it's acting as HDMI, power, USB, ethernet, etc. When you put your Switch in the dock, it quickly identifies the dock as "HDMI with Power Delivery." It also identifies the order this should happen in: i.e., the Switch dock could be recognized as an HDMI port, with power second, with USB ports third. AFAIK, there is no way for Nintendo to give their dock an advantage here.
That being said, USB-C as a spec is complicated, because it's a spec that represents all the different specs for HDMI, power, USB, etc., all over the world, and all at once. If you make a USB-C dock or dongle, you really need to know what you're doing. If you mess up, you'll — you guessed it — damage the device after you plug in said peripheral.
I'm guessing that Nintendo wanted to prevent crappy USB-C stuff from damaging consoles, and tightened up what was "okay" to use via the 5.0 software update. That ironically bricked a ton of devices using USB-C devices made by companies who don't know what they're doing. Nintendo looks like they're to blame, but in reality, your Switch could have potentially been bricked by those devices one day regardless.
I don't know anything about what's going on at Nintendo, but they do have to program the Switch to recognize the dock in a certain order. So, in other words, if they changed it from the Switch dock being an HDMI port first, power second, USB third, to a different hub stack, then that would be enough for any differing third party dock that operates differently to brick your console.
The reason that USB-C power banks and chargers are still fine is because the Switch doesn't have to know the sequential order of the bank's features. The power bank isn't a hub; it's just power. So those of you who plug your Switch into an iPad charger are fine.
Comments 8
Re: Guide: Upcoming Nintendo Switch Games And Accessories For April And May
Give me DK and Dark Souls right now. Super stoked.
Re: Could Switch's Non-Compliant USB-C Spec Be To Blame For Third-Party Docks Bricking Consoles?
@Yorumi That compliance process is silly though. If everybody just followed spec, it'd be a non-issue. Same with power bricks. Nyko should never need to get verified by Nintendo, and herein lies Nintendo's fault in the problem. But I also doubt that the Nyko dock is up to any sort of spec, period, regardless of the Switch itself.
Re: Could Switch's Non-Compliant USB-C Spec Be To Blame For Third-Party Docks Bricking Consoles?
@Yorumi I'd 100% agree with you that the Switch should have a better error recovery in place here. This is pretty inexcusable, and I'm not trying to make excuses for Nintendo. My original point, perhaps lost in the mountain of text I wrote, was to say that the fault doesn't entirely lie with Nintendo when hardware manufacturers are generally all awful at implementing USB-C spec properly. (Nintendo should take some of the blame, but I don't want to act like the third parties are all innocent here.)
Re: Could Switch's Non-Compliant USB-C Spec Be To Blame For Third-Party Docks Bricking Consoles?
@Blathers This is my bad; I hadn't had time to read through everything yet. I love Nathan K's research and have been following it since early 2016 when he started experimenting with Pixels and MacBooks. I suspect he's correct about PD issues, although I'm not sure that's related to the dock. I've been using my MacBook Pro charger and a power bank for a year while travelling through, and haven't had issues with the Switch. It sounds like a lot of it is over-drawing power, and I think that can be fixed with software.
Re: Could Switch's Non-Compliant USB-C Spec Be To Blame For Third-Party Docks Bricking Consoles?
@electrolite77 thanks for reading! I'm at work right now and have given all the different Google Plus stuff a read and the original Reddit threads. Nathan K, on Google +, is a super smart guy and I suspect he's right about chargers and power delivery (although my Switch seems fine after using my MacBook Pro charger for the past year).
I think the dock thing legitimately comes down to a combination of power and handshake issues, though, which means it's a combination of all these things and likely some internal politics we'll never be privy too.
Nintendo absolutely deserves condemnation for not using a "standard" USB-C protocol, but for what it's worth, there are maybe two companies in the world up to those standards. One of them is Apple. Otherwise, folks like Nathan K are having a hard time finding USB-C peripherals that behave well.
Re: Could Switch's Non-Compliant USB-C Spec Be To Blame For Third-Party Docks Bricking Consoles?
I created an account here just to post about this, because I think a lot of people here are confused and don't understand the spec.
Nintendo is using a regular USB-C port. It's not special. I'm also fairly certain that the Redditor is incorrect.
I wrote a whole lot more about this over here: https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2018/03/nintendo_comments_on_third-party_docks_bricking_switch_systems#comment4406405, but it basically comes down to handshake protocols of USB-C. PD-bricks should be fine, assuming the wattage is correct and the PD bricks are made up to snuff.
Re: Nintendo Comments On Third-Party Docks Bricking Switch Systems
@Mortenb USB-C isn't a brand. It's a specification. Anybody can use it, just like HDMI, USB-C, or your average wall plug. And just like a wall plug, if manufacturers are careless, their product might set something on fire. (Speaking about the third-party dock manufacturers here, who are likely more to blame than Nintendo.)
Re: Nintendo Comments On Third-Party Docks Bricking Switch Systems
I've created an account here just to post about this, mostly to clarify a couple things:
1. You can continue to use your USB-C power bricks without issue, unless the voltage doesn't match up. USB-C Power Delivery (PD) is a different spec from what Nintendo uses with the docks.
2. Nintendo isn't likely trying to be nefarious here. USB-C is a pretty complex technology. When you plug in a USB-C dongle into a device, the device has to determine what said dongle is. It's basically doing a "handshake" with the device to find out if it's acting as HDMI, power, USB, ethernet, etc. When you put your Switch in the dock, it quickly identifies the dock as "HDMI with Power Delivery." It also identifies the order this should happen in: i.e., the Switch dock could be recognized as an HDMI port, with power second, with USB ports third. AFAIK, there is no way for Nintendo to give their dock an advantage here.
That being said, USB-C as a spec is complicated, because it's a spec that represents all the different specs for HDMI, power, USB, etc., all over the world, and all at once. If you make a USB-C dock or dongle, you really need to know what you're doing. If you mess up, you'll — you guessed it — damage the device after you plug in said peripheral.
I'm guessing that Nintendo wanted to prevent crappy USB-C stuff from damaging consoles, and tightened up what was "okay" to use via the 5.0 software update. That ironically bricked a ton of devices using USB-C devices made by companies who don't know what they're doing. Nintendo looks like they're to blame, but in reality, your Switch could have potentially been bricked by those devices one day regardless.
I don't know anything about what's going on at Nintendo, but they do have to program the Switch to recognize the dock in a certain order. So, in other words, if they changed it from the Switch dock being an HDMI port first, power second, USB third, to a different hub stack, then that would be enough for any differing third party dock that operates differently to brick your console.
The reason that USB-C power banks and chargers are still fine is because the Switch doesn't have to know the sequential order of the bank's features. The power bank isn't a hub; it's just power. So those of you who plug your Switch into an iPad charger are fine.